Below are some of the most interesting and evocative documents cited in The Most Awful Responsibility. These are included both because I believe that the availability of such documents is essential for both public and expert assessment of historical arguments, and also because they give a rich sense of what archival research itself is like. I hope they are of interest to both lay and expert readers, as well as educators who may find them useful in teaching.
These documents represent only a small subset of documents consulted for the book, much less cited for the book. In some cases, I have added annotations to the PDF to indicate the provenance or content of missing text.
I have added a number of documents from the World War II period so far. I will be adding more in the coming weeks, covering topics such as the “custody dispute” over the atomic bomb, the development of the H-bomb, and the Korean War.
World War II
Leslie R. Groves, "Atomic Fission Bombs," April 23, 1945 #
Leslie R. Groves, "Atomic Fission Bombs," (23 April 1945), National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD, RG 77, Commanding General’s file no. 24, tab D; copy in William Burr, ed, “The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II,” National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book no. 718 (4 August 2020).
The memo, prepared by General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, was presented to Truman on April 25, 1945, during the first full briefing that Truman received on the atomic bomb. It covers, over its 23 pages: a brief history of the project; the nature of atomic weapons; the plan of operations for using the weapons; the various production installations created; the "extraordinary security measures" used to keep the project secret; the collaboration with the United Kingdom; the effort to acquire sufficient stocks of raw materials; the state of the Russian, French, German, and Japanese interest in nuclear fission; the funding of the project; and postwar plans for the technology.
To Groves’s obvious relief, Truman “did not show any concern over the amount of funds being spent.” Groves recalled more than a decade later, that Truman would “constantly interrupt” his reading of the report, and complained that, “I don’t like to read papers.” To this, Stimson replied: “We can’t tell you this in any more concise language. This is a big project.”
The entire meeting between Groves, Stimson, and Truman, however, was no longer than 45 minutes. It is difficult to imagine anyone digesting this amount of information effectively in that amount of time, much less when all of it would be extremely new, and much of it very surprising.
Leslie R. Groves to Henry Stimson, "The Test," July 18, 1945 #
Leslie R. Groves to Henry L. Stimson, "The Test," (18 July 1945), in Correspondence ("Top Secret") of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, microfilm publication M1109 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1980), Roll 1, Target 5, Folder 4.
This memo was the first full description of the success of the Trinity test, which took place two days earlier near Alamogordo, New Mexico, by Groves, the head of the Manhattan Project. It was sent by courier to the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, who was then with President Truman at the "Big Three" conference in Potsdam, Germany. When he received it on July 21, Stimson promptly brought it to Truman, who received this "immensely powerful document" (in Stimson's words) with intense interest.
Groves wrote:
At 0530, 16 July 1945, in a remote section of the Alamogordo Air Base, New Mexico, the first full scale test was made of the implosion type atomic fission bomb. For the first time in history there was a nuclear explosion. And what an explosion! It resulted from the atomic fission of about 13-½ pounds of plutonium which was compressed by the detonation of a surrounding sphere of some 5,000 pounds of high explosives. [...] The test was successful beyond the most optimistic expectations of anyone. Based on the data which it has been possible to work up to date, I estimate the energy generated to be in excess of the equivalent of 15,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT; and this is a conservative estimate.
Stimson dictated for his diary that evening that Truman, “said it gave him an entirely new feeling of confidence and he thanked me for having come to the conference and being present to help him in this way.” Winston Churchill remarked to Stimson the next day that after this meeting with Truman, the president “was evidently much fortified” and had “stood up to the Russians in a most emphatic and decisive manner.” After getting Groves’s report, Truman was, Churchill noted with obvious delight, “a changed man.”
The line about the mass of plutonium in the weapon is censored in most archival copies, but is available in full in Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins of the Arms Race (Vintage, 1987 [1975], appendix P, 308.
Henry Stimson diary entry, July 24, 1945 #
Henry L. Stimson diary entry (24 July 1945), Henry Lewis Stimson Papers (MS 465), Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, digitized by the Center for Research Libraries.
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson's diaries, which he generally dictated nightly, are a rich source of material for early atomic discussions. This entry from July 24, 1945, is very important for my book, as it describes the final time that Stimson spoke about keeping Kyoto off of the atomic target list with President Truman, and is just before Truman's own diary entry (see below) on the subject. It also gives a general sense of how the American delegation was thinking about both Japan and the Soviet Union at this moment at the end of the Potsdam Conference.
Stimson refers to the atomic bomb by the code "S-1" in his diary. The key section is this, with my annotations:
We had a few words more about the S-l [atomic bomb] program, and I again gave him my reasons for eliminating one of the proposed targets [Kyoto]. He [Truman] again reiterated with the utmost emphasis his concurring belief on that, subject, and he was particularly emphatic in agreeing with my suggestion that if elimination was not done, the bitterness which would be caused by such a wanton, act might make it impossible during the long post-war period to reconcile the Japanese to us in that area rather than to the Russians. It might own thus, I pointed out, be the means of preventing what our policy demanded, namely a sympathetic Japan to the United States in case there should be any aggression by Russia in Manchuria.
Compare this understanding of the conversation with Truman's, below — for Stimson, the issue was framed as one of long-term strategy, for Truman it seems to have been framed somewhat differently.
This excerpt also includes some discussion of Stimson's views on the surrender of Japan and the Potsdam declaration, Stimson's impressions of Stalin ("the impressive part of him was a very large head"), and, also importantly, Stimson's mention of Truman's interest in the "schedule" of the bombing:
I then showed him the telegram which had come last evening from [Stimson's aide in DC, George] Harrison giving the dates of the [atomic bomb] operations. He [Truman] said that was just what he wanted, that he was highly delighted and that it gave him his cue for his warning [the Potsdam Declaration].
What was the telegram? The telegram, which arrived very early that morning on July 24, read:
First one of tested type should be ready at Pacific base about 6 August. Second one ready about 24 August. Additional ones ready at accelerating rate from possibly three in September to we hope seven or more in December.
Which is possibly another source of confusion: it makes it sound like there will only be one bomb ready in early August. But a subtle distinction is indicated: it refers only to the tested type of bomb, the plutonium-implosion design tested at Trinity. There was, however, another type of bomb, the un-tested, uranium-fueled "gun-type" bomb, that would be ready at nearly the same time.
It is unclear that Truman actually understood that there would be two bombs dropped in rapid successful, and then a pause of at least a week.
Truman Potsdam journal entry, July 25, 1945 #
Harry S. Truman, “Potsdam diary” (25 July 1945), President’s Secretary’s Files, 1945–1960, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence, MO, Personal Files, “Ross, Mr. and Mrs. Charles G.,” NAID: 183568382.
While at the Potsdam Conference, Truman received news about the success of the Trinity test. He also met with the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, several times. During one of these meetings, Stimson urged Truman to concur with his recommendation that Kyoto be removed from the list of targets. On July 25, the same day that the strike order against Japan was finalized, Truman wrote a personal journal entry about the bomb, reproduced here (and with a transcription).
The key section, for me, is the following:
"This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson to use so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop this terrible bomb on the old Capitol or the new. He & I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I’m sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance."
"The old Capitol" is a reference to Kyoto, a historical capital city of Japan prior to Tokyo ("the new"). The "warning statement" is the Potsdam Declaration. Of interest is Truman's assertion that, after his discussion with Stimson, he believed that "that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children" and that "the target will be a purely military one." I argue in the book that contrary to most scholars, I believe it makes the most sense to assume that this represents Truman's (erroneous) understanding of the situation.
Leslie R. Groves to George C. Marshall, with handwritten reply, August 10, 1945 #
Leslie R. Groves to George C. Marshall (10 August 1945), National Archives and Records Administration, Archives II, College Park, MD, RG77, General Correspondence, “25 Q,” NAID: 6874336.
This memo from the head of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie R. Groves, to the Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, updates the latter on the timeline of the next atomic bomb for use against Japan on the day after the Nagasaki attack. Crucially, it describes how the third plutonium core (the first having been tested at the Trinity test, the second used against Nagasaki) has been developed ahead of schedule, and will be ready to ship to Tinian within days, and used on Japan within a week. At the bottom, above Marshall's signature, is a handwritten reply:
"It is not to be released over Japan without express authority from the President."
The exact circumstances of when Marshall saw and replied to this memo are not exactly clear. But that afternoon, Truman told his cabinet, as recorded in the diary of Henry Wallace (Secretary of Commerce), that:
Truman said he had given orders to stop atomic bombing. He said the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible. He didn't like the idea of killing, as he said, "all those kids."
Groves would later try to take credit for the halting of the bombings, but the record from the time indicates he was doing everything in his power to enable the next bomb to be "ready for delivery" as soon as possible, and that he was part of a group of military generals angling to increase the pressure for using another atomic bomb. That Truman claimed to his cabinet (if we believe Wallace's diary, which I do) that he had given such orders, and that this choice was made on the basis of his desire to spare non-combatant lives, is, I think, significant.
Leslie Groves interview about the atomic bombings, ca. 1963 #
Leslie R. Groves interview with Fred Freed (n.d., ca. 1963), National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD, RG 200, Box 4, “Groves, Leslie.”
This is a partial transcript of an interview with General Leslie R. Groves from the early 1960s, conducted by Fred Freed (and others) that was made as part of the filming of a documentary created by NBC-TV on The Decision to Drop the Bomb (1965). The raw transcript contains many anecdotes, and evocative language, that did not make it into the final documentary.
In particular, this version (which is most of one tape, and a bit from another) contains several discussions of Truman's role in the "decision" to use the bomb, e.g.:
...writers of recent years who were not familiar with the workings of the project... have seemed to think that there would have been a formal paper which the President of the United States wrote: 'The bomb will be dropped on such and such a place anytime after such and such a date.' That is not the way it was done.
It also repeatedly discusses Groves' recollections of the question of Kyoto being removed from the list by Stimson ("Kyoto would have been the first city bombed, and I think there ought to be a statue to Secretary Stimson right in the heart of Kyoto for having saved the city, because that is what he did"), which, despite his later claims to being supportive of Stimson's efforts, Groves still regarded to, at length, as a form of "interference."
Groves' recollections need to be read with a heavy dose of skepticism, as they are well after the fact, come on the heels of Groves having reformulated this story for his own memoirs, and are self-justifying to a fault. Nevertheless, they are still at times revealing of Groves' state of mind, and his impressions of Stimson and Truman.
Harry S. Truman, "Gridiron Dinner" speech, December 15, 1945 #
Harry S. Truman, “Typed Draft of the Gridiron Dinner Remarks,” (December 1945), Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence, MO, President's Secretary's Files, Speech Files, Presidential Speeches—Longhand Notes File, October–December 1945, NAID: 183567544.
In mid-December 1945, Truman wrote a speech to deliver at the annual Gridiron Club dinner, to an audience of journalists and editors in Washington, DC. The Gridiron Club dinner speeches were public, in a sense, but meant to be off-the-record.
With the original drafts written in his own hand, Truman's speech dwells on the question of the atomic bomb at length and are instructive as to his conflicted mindset:
You know the most terrible decision a man ever had to make was made by me at Potsdam—it had nothing to do with Russia, or Britain or Germany.
It was a decision to loose the most terrible of all destructive forces for the wholesale slaughter of human beings.
The Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson, and I weighed that decision most prayerfully. But the President had to decide.
While the speech misrepresents the nature of the "decision" in many ways, and repeats what was becoming a stock justification for the bombings — saving lives — I think the specific language here is telling. In what other context would someone who felt good about the atomic bombings of Japan describe the use of the bomb as "the most terrible of all destructive forces for the wholesale slaughter of human beings"?[/quote]
There are several versions of the speech, including several rounds of handwritten notes. This printed copy of the speech was one that Truman sent to his close aide, Charlie Ross, with the inscription: “in fear and trembling, Harry Truman.”
“Fear and trembling” frequently refers to one of two Bible passages, and is used differently in each. Psalm 55 is a plea to God for reinforcement in the face of an enemy: “My heart doth writhe within me; and the terrors of death are fallen upon me. / Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me. / And I said: ‘Oh that I had wings like a dove! Then would I fly away, and be at rest.’ ” Philippians 2 uses it to advocate continued work in the service of God: “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” Which use Truman had in mind is unclear, but an argument could be made for either.